


Faded

by Three_Oaks



Series: Oaksy's Prompt Game [22]
Category: Mission: Impossible (Movies)
Genre: Amnesia, Angst, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Some comfort, Suicide Attempt, first chapter is heavy on the angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-22
Updated: 2020-04-28
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:48:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23788090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Three_Oaks/pseuds/Three_Oaks
Summary: Ethan wakes up from an injury without any memories of the past fifteen years. Of his separation with Julia. Of Benji.Amnesia
Relationships: Benji Dunn/Ethan Hunt
Series: Oaksy's Prompt Game [22]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1676299
Comments: 10
Kudos: 43





	1. Chapter 1

Ethan woke up in a bed that wasn't his. All around him, machines buzzed and beeped. Hospital intensive care. It had to be. He wasn't in pain, but he was dizzy, he couldn't think. Drugs. He tried to focus. The bedsheets were soft. There was bandage across his face. A hand holding his.

He opened his eyes, as much as he could.

There was a man by his bedside. Blond, short beard, late forties. He looked as if he hadn't slept in a week, as if he'd just seen the world end.

He turned his head, noticed that Ethan was awake. Relief flooded his face.

"Ethan, you're..."

"Who are you?"

***

Benji looked at his hands on the table. He'd been sitting like that since he'd arrived. He didn't have the strength to move.

"Benji?"

"Julia. Hi. How was your trip?"

"Alright. But Luther wouldn't explain. What is going on?"

"I'm... I'm sorry. I wanted to do this myself."

Benji took a deep breath.

"Ethan was hurt. Badly. And he..."

He strangled, swallowed. Closed his eyes for an instant.

"He's forgotten the past fifteen years. He thinks you’re still engaged."

"Oh, god."

Benji didn't know what else to say. He couldn’t understand, not really. Every time he saw Ethan, the confusion in his eyes, heard every word out of his mouth, all he could think was _This can’t be true_.

Shyly, Julia reached out and ran a finger on the gold band on Benji's hand.

"Does he..."

"He doesn't remember me."

He couldn't do this. He’d tought he could, that he could do anything for Ethan. He thought he’d already done the hardest. Seen the shot, the wound. Ethan collapsing, like a puppet whose strings had been cut. Stayed with him, at the hospital. Said goodbye, because the doctors had seen it would need a miracle for him to survive the night. Sat through all the other nights, when he’d refused to die. But he couldn’t do this.

"I'm sorry. I know I should just be grateful that he's alive, but..."

He stopped. But what? Ethan was alive. He needed Benji. He had to do this.

"Could you talk to him, please? It may be easier to accept from you."

"Of course."

***

"Hello, Ethan."

He breathed with relief. She was there, finally. He hadn’t understood why she wasn’t, when he’d woken up. Why they wouldn’t let him call her.

"Julia. You're there. But he said..."

He’d refused to believe the man. It couldn’t be true. It just couldn’t. But it was.

"Benji called me. How are you feeling?"

Benji. Right.

She sat by the bed, took his hand into her own. She looked older, now. A few white hair, a few wrinkles. Still as beautiful.

"I’m fine. My head hurts a bit. I missed you."

He bit his tongue, hard. She wasn't his partner. Not anymore. Not for a long time. He had no right to miss her.

"Ethan..."

"I know. They told me. It just doesn't feel real. What happened, Julia?" he said, trying not to sound as scared as he was. Failing, by the look on her face.

"Ten years ago, we separated. Not because we didn't love each other, but because we couldn't be together."

Her voice was kind. Kinder than he deserved.

"Was it my fault?"

She squeezed his hand.

"No. It wasn't. You did everything you could."

He wanted to believe that, desperately.

"Are you happy?"

"I am. I married a wonderful man. I became a doctor," she smiled. Sincerely. She'd moved on.

"That's... that's good."

Panic started to rise in his chest. He couldn’t stand the emptiness, where his life should have been.

"What about me?"

"You went back to the field, kept doing what you did. You met someone, too."

The same story Luther had told him. The words rang empty, again.

"Benji."

He wished that name meant something. But it didn't.

"He keeps coming here. I don't know why. It's hurting him. And I can't... I can't do anything. Because there's nothing. The past fifteen years, there's nothing left. I don't have anything left. I don't know what do. I keep seeing how Benji looks at me, and Luther. And everything I say makes it worse. Maybe it would have been better if I had died."

There it was. The lingering doubt, born at the back of his mind, growing like poison vine with every day that passed. He didn't dare to look at Julia.

"That's not true. You'll get better, Ethan."

"I won't. Doctors said that kind of damage needed a miracle," he said bitterly.

"And you've been doing miracles your whole life. But even if you don't, this isn't the end. It's just a new beginning."

"Is he a good man?"

"Yes. He is."

She didn't hesitate.

He didn’t know what he’d lost. Never would. But it had been good. He’d been happy.

He wanted that again.

***

"What do you want to do when you come out, Ethan?" Benji asked.

He'd been there every day since he'd woken up. Ethan had started to notice things, when he shaved and when he came directly in his office clothes. How well he'd slept the night before.

He took a deep breath.

"I want to go home with you."

"What? Really? But... Of course."

Benji wiped his eyes as if a headache was pounding behind them.

Ethan had said the wrong thing. Again.

"You don't have to. I'm sorry. It's alright if you don't. "

"You don't have to apologize. I'm just surprised, it's all. I just thought you might want to stay with Luther for a while."

"Julia trusts you. I trusted you. I chose you. Even if I can't remember it. I want... I want to be with you."

Because he didn’t know how else to fill that unbearable emptiness.

"Alright."

***

Benji opened the door, and stepped away to let Ethan in. He walked into the hallway, before stopping, looking around uncertainly. Of course. Benji kicked himself.

"The coat closet is the one to the left, you can leave your shoes by the mirror.”

It was easy. He’d just explain everything to Ethan again.

“Let me give you the tour. To the right, the kitchen. I know, it's too small, you keep saying we should move to have more space."

"Why didn't we?"

"It was the flat I had before we got together. We spent so much time there in the early days that we couldn't really imagine being anywhere else, I guess."

Ethan's first visit. His flat had been so messy, he'd been mortified. Ethan hadn't seemed to mind. God, he wanted to cry.

"The living room is through that door. Do you want to sit down, have a cup of tea?" he said, before Ethan could notice anything wrong.

He couldn’t cry. He couldn’t let him know. Ethan wanted this. He had to do this.

"That would be great, thank you. Milk, no..."

"No sugar. I know."

As soon as Ethan had left the room, Benji muffled a sob into his hand. Then another. What was wrong with him? He put the kettle on, made tea. Cleaned his face, and hoped his eyes weren't too red.

Ethan was sitting on the armchair by the window, staring at a picture so intensely he didn't hear him.

Benji sat down next to him.

"Your armchair is the blue one," he said.

Ethan jumped up.

"No, no, sit back down. It doesn't matter. I'm not six. It's fine, really. What were you looking at?"

He handed him the frame. Their wedding picture. They'd been so happy. Benji felt tears again, burning at the corner of his eyes. He ignored it.

"It's alright," he said, before Ethan could apologize again.

God, he was messing this up already.

"Could you... Could you tell me a bit more about us?"

"We met at work. You came to me for help when Julia was kidnapped, back when I was only in tech. Afterwards, I became a field agent, we worked with each other some more, and started dating. This was our wedding, last September."

The facts. Flat, emotionless. All he could manage, right then.

"Thank you," Ethan said. He frowned a bit, with that face he made when he was trying to puzzle out a hard problem.

Benji had never felt that alone. But it didn't matter.

"Alright. Do you want to eat anything?"

"I'm a bit tired. I'll go right to bed, if you don't mind."

"Of course not."

They both stood, awkwardly.

"Bedroom is at the end of the hall. Let me just grab a pillow and a blanket."

"You don't have to sleep on the couch, really. I don't want to..."

"I'd rather sleep on the sofa," Benji interrupted.

He couldn’t bear waking up next to Ethan, forgetting what had happened, only to watch it crumble all over again.

Ethan's face fell.

"Of course. I'm sorry. I don't know... I don't know how to do this."

"Just get some rest. You'll feel better tomorrow."

He clapped Ethan on the back, smiled with a cheer he didn't feel. It was easier if he pretended. Ethan, his Ethan, was gone. But he loved him all the same.


	2. Chapter 2

Ethan woke at five that morning, after a night of painful dreams he didn't understand and left him only more tired, more empty. He'd spent the past month hitting himself on every surface in the unfamiliar bedroom, bruising his shin on the small table to the door and his toes on the armchair by the bed. It was a cosy room, a room in which you could feel that people had loved spending time in, made to be enjoyed on lazy mornings and rainy Sunday afternoons. It was his bedroom. He'd picked that carpet and that funny cushion. Or maybe Benji had. He couldn't remember. He just wished it didn't feel like it belonged to a stranger. A stranger whose life he'd stolen.

He lay in bed for an hour more, counting his breaths. Raking his brain for memories long gone. It was pointless. There would be no miracle, not today. Not ever. He wondered if the man he'd been would rather have died. 

Maybe he just wasn't trying hard enough.

He got up, showered without bothering to let the water heat, got dressed and put the kettle on. Earl grey, brewed exactly two minutes. He laid the table, took out the bread and the jam. He'd made sure to get more raspberry, Benji's favorite. He liked his bread toasted, but only very lightly, and always got dark bread instead of white one because it was healthier, even though he didn't enjoy it as much. The grey mug with the bird on it was the one he used every morning. Ethan felt like there was a story behind it, but didn't dare to ask. He didn't want to remind Benji that he was a fake. 

Benji still slept on the sofa, most nights. The others, he left and only came back at dawn. He hadn't offered an explanation, and Ethan hadn't asked. Even when he was there, he wasn't sleeping much, or at all. He screamed in his sleep, too, sometimes several nights in a row. Once, Ethan had made the mistake of waking him up. The look of despair, of anger when he'd come out of it enough to remember that he wasn't the one he wanted to see had hurt more than he cared to think about. 

He made sure the table was perfect, and waited for Benji's alarm to ring.

*** 

The alarm rang through the fog of Benji's mind, sleep receding like a wave on the shore. He got up and went to the bathroom, splashed some water on his face. Ethan's door was already open, the bed made with military precision. He'd be in the kitchen again.

The table was already set, the tea waiting for him in his favorite mug, the one Ethan had bought him in Bruges.

"Bread will be ready in a few seconds, sorry," Ethan said. 

" 's ok."

Ethan looked at him, when he thought he wasn't looking. Watching his every moment. Learning to pick up the cues, to know what he'd say before he'd said it. Every little detail he could learn, he had, cataloguing his like and dislikes, the subjects that he'd rather avoid and the one they could discuss. He was very good at that. 

Benji didn't dare to tell him to stop, that he didn't have to try that hard.

"How did you sleep?" Ethan asked.

"Alright. You?"

"Not too bad, thank you."

There was a moment of silence. Benji noted that Ethan wasn't eating, again.

"What do you want to do today? I'm not supposed to go out yet, but I'm sure there's no harm from getting some coffee from that place by the park."

Benji's stomach clenched. Of course he'd know about it. He'd probably seen the branded cup, the fidelity card in Benji's wallet. Even if it meant nothing to him.

"Or we don't have to if you don't want to," Ethan said, hastily.

"No, we can go there if you want to," Benji said, with his best smile on.

Not good enough. Ethan looked down, hesitated.

"What's wrong, Benji?"

"Nothing's wrong."

"That's not true. I know I keep... that I keep messing up."

"You're not messing up, Ethan."

"So why do keep looking at me like I am?"

Benji closed his eyes for an instant. He hated himself for being that weak, for failing Ethan. 

"I'm sorry that you feel that way. I don't think you're messing anything up. Let's get dressed and grab coffee, ok?" he said, trying his best to sound enthusiastic.

Because otherwise he would break down.

"I don't... I don't know. I think I'd rather stay home, if that's ok."

"Of course! And don't bother about cleaning up, I can do it."

Ethan nodded, and left the room.

***

He tried sleeping for a few hours, trying to find the rest he could never find at night. Failing, again. He tried counting, focusing on his breathing, imagining himself in the field behind his mother's house, everything he could think of to help him find sleep. But every time he started slipping off, he'd be hit by a sudden wave of terror and pain, coming from everywhere and nowhere at once, suffocating him. He couldn't try to think about it rationally, or tell himself that it was over, that he was fine. He wasn't, no matter how much he tried. 

He'd seen how Benji looked at him, no matter what he said.

With a sigh, he got up. What was even the point? Even in his dreams, he never got the relief of forgetting he was broken. 

Voices were coming from the living room, hushed. He walked up to the door, quieting his steps. Benji was on the phone.

"You've got to talk to him, Benji," Luther said.

"I can't."

"Come on, you know that you can't keep up like that."

"I can't! I just can't. I can barely look at him."

"Do you want me to come over?"

His voice was muted, as if it were coming from far away. As if it wasn't real.

"No. He wants to be here, with me. So I'm going to keep pretending that this is fine, that I don't want to fucking cry every time I see him."

Ethan let himself slide to the ground. 

Suddenly, he knew what he had to do. There was no point in hurting Benji like that. 

He got to his feet, carefully unlocked the door, and went to the roof.

It was a beautiful day. Sunny, with a few clouds bright white against the deep blue sky. The roof was warm under his naked feet as he walked to the edge of the building.

He stepped on the ledge.

It was for the best. Benji would be able to move on.

Like Julia had.

The door to the room slammed open in a fracas of metal.

"No! Please, Ethan!" Benji shouted.

"Please," Benji begged. "I can't... I can't lose you again."

"You already have. The person you love, he's dead."

His voice was flat. Emotionless. As empty as he was.

"You're the person I love!"

"When you can't even look at me? I heard you talking to Luther. It's better that way. That way, you don't have to pretend."

Perfectly rational. Maybe Benji would even be able to pretend he hadn't survived in the first place. That would have been for the best, he decided. 

"Don't say that. Please. Please, come back down."

It was strange, Ethan noted. He was calm. For the first time since he'd woken up, he felt like himself. Whoever that was. But he'd never seen Benji that scared, that desperate, not even at the hospital.

"You're all I have. You're all I have left. What I didn't want to tell you is how hard it is, for me. Because it doesn't matter! All that matters is you. And it's not fair to you to let you bear that. It's not your fault."

Of course it was his fault. Wasn't it?

Benji took a deep breath.

"I fucked up. I thought that it would be better if I just tried to act like nothing was wrong. Because there's nothing wrong with you. You're still the kindest, most caring man I know. You're you. And I love you, just as I've loved you before."

Ethan started crying.

"It's just hard for me to know that you don't have all of the moments that we spent together, the moments that I think of when everything hurts and I don't know how to keep moving. Because I don't know how I would live without them."

"What if I never remember? What if I'm like that forever?"

He was terrified, again.

"Then we'll have other moments."

Benji walked towards him, slowly.

Ethan fell into his arms. He didn't know if it was only his broken mind, playing tricks on him. Maybe it was. But it felt like coming home.


End file.
